A bit of help before I jack up my unibody

I've trimmed my front fenders without any major complications (the paint kinda looks bad), and now it is time to move on to the rear.

I know you cannot trim past the pinch seam, but I swear I have seen pics of fenders trimmed passed the blue line in the pic below. How do you do that?

I thought I read somewhere that the correct way of trimming the rears is to make relief cuts (in red) and fold the fender up; is that correct? Could you go as high as the relief cut in yellow?



53Guy seems to think if I did the front, I should be able to do the rears...but he hasn't seen the nice hack job I did on the fronts yet.

splitz said:

I've trimmed my front fenders without any major complications (the paint kinda looks bad), and now it is time to move on to the rear.

I know you cannot trim past the pinch seam, but I swear I have seen pics of fenders trimmed passed the blue line in the pic below. How do you do that?

I thought I read somewhere that the correct way of trimming the rears is to make relief cuts (in red) and fold the fender up; is that correct? Could you go as high as the relief cut in yellow?

53Guy seems to think if I did the front, I should be able to do the rears...but he hasn't seen the nice hack job I did on the fronts yet.

Click to expand...

Doing the pizza cut method in the rears is the way to do it. You then fold the tabs back and hammer them flat. The problem I would see in going to the yellow line, is the wheel well starts to seperate from the body panel and it gets difficult to pinch those two together and fold.

I went to the red line you have drawn. I used some bondo glass (the stuff with fiberglass strands in it), and smoothed over all the cut tabs to clean it up and blend it into the wheel well. I then used Herculiner and went over the top. It turned out well.

jdbwrx said:

Doing the pizza cut method in the rears is the way to do it. You then fold the tabs back and hammer them flat. The problem I would see in going to the yellow line, is the wheel well starts to seperate from the body panel and it gets difficult to pinch those two together and fold.

Click to expand...

Yep. They red lines are as high as you really want to go with the cut and fold method. To the yellow line the pinch seam isnt held together.

Now, some people seem to cut fairly high, and not weld it back. They add some sort of sealant and call it good. To me, that doesnt seem to be as structually sound as the stock pinch seem. Now, the stock one isnt exactly the best thing around, but Im sure it helps a fair amount. Basicly what Im saying is just think about what you are cutting, and what people recomend. That being said, how do you know Im not full of stuff? :shiver:

So if I don't go with the cut and fold, I should just stick to trimming to the blue line right?

The only problem I see with the cut and fold method is I'm going to be making a bunch of cuts that I need to make sure line up nicely or it will look like crap, and I'm not very good at cutting sheet metal.

splitz said:

I've trimmed my front fenders without any major complications (the paint kinda looks bad), and now it is time to move on to the rear.

I know you cannot trim past the pinch seam, but I swear I have seen pics of fenders trimmed passed the blue line in the pic below. How do you do that?

I thought I read somewhere that the correct way of trimming the rears is to make relief cuts (in red) and fold the fender up; is that correct? Could you go as high as the relief cut in yellow?

53Guy seems to think if I did the front, I should be able to do the rears...but he hasn't seen the nice hack job I did on the fronts yet.

Click to expand...

when i cut my rears out all i did was cut parralell with the blue blin but where the red lined end. i still had a little lip of fender and sis not go into the rear of my vehicle

cutting the rear is not as hard as one might think. I'll try to get some pics up but it comes out so good you will wonder why you didn't do it earlier. I used a 4 inch grinder with a cut off wheel and it is easy to see when you need to stop then before you bend it put some painters tape and hammer away its easier than the front. Another thing I cut by the blue line first so both parts of the pinch seam were equal length.

I cut to the middle of the flare mount holes and then used 3M mastic tape to "dress" the edge. On my 92, that left more than half of the pinch seem in place and I did not have to make multiple cuts and try and bend the sheet metal with a hammer.

I cut and rewelded to the yellow line the second time. I just cut the red off the first time.

The PO of my jeep put bush whackers on it and cut way past the spot welds. So far i haven't noticed any problems with it. Not the way i would have done but it seems to be allright.

I cut beyond the yellow line (a total of about 1.2"). I cut in ~4-5" sections and hammered them back.

I've been meaning to get around to welding them for more than a year now, but haven't gotten to it. I've seen no problems as of yet, though.

-C